An Unforgettable Journey
by missangellicdevil
Summary: Laura and Zara are two neglected daughters at home. As such, they leave home, hoping to have a better future. Along the way, the girls also learn valuable life lessons. How will things turn out? Read and Review!


Whenever I take out my diary, an old and tattered book, and flipped through the pages that were held intact with superglue, I would remember the very day Zara and I left home...

That was 4 years ago...

"C'mon, let's hurry, before they sober up," Zara urged. I nodded, struggling to squeeze my foot into my sneakers. Finally, my feet managed to fit in and I stood up, grabbing my rucksack, which held all the necessary documents for our departure, as well as some spare cash.

"Let's go, then," Zara whispered, and I nodded. She grabbed the door knob, turned it, and swung open the door. The cold, sweet air blew across our faces and into the house. The breeze blew about the house, clearing the air, making it a little more tolerable to breathe. It was rare to smell such a sweet scent in the house, which stank of alcohol and tobacco. Well, that was in the past. With everything that we needed, I stepped out of the house, a brand new person. I was no longer Alyssa Rowley, a girl from a dysfunctional family. I was Alyssa Kingston, a girl without any parents except my twenty-one year old sister as my legal guardian.

Zara and I headed for Washington Dulles International Airport. There, we planned to take a plane to Phoenix, Arizona. We have never had the chance to take a plane before, nor did we get the chance to travel inter-state, as Dad's alcohol addiction had spent all of our cash from our mother's ill-gotten gains as a drug trafficker. Now, she joined Dad, smoking, taking drugs and downing many bottles of booze every night. When we leave for school in the morning, we would see them sprawled on the floor, very drunk and wasted. It took forever for them to sober up. But that was our past. Our present lives will start very soon.

At Washington Dulles International Airport, we bought two plane tickets to Phoenix, Arizona, and then checked in. It took us a while at the checkpoint, as the officer tried to find ways to prove that our passports are fakes, which they were. However, our friend, Dixon, told us that they were so well done that it is impossible to distinguish that it is a fake. We acted naturally in front of the officer, and then we got waved through.

We were free! After being dragged down by our friends and all the people around us by the impression our parents for so long, we finally got our freedom. Taking the airplane was fun, and when we arrived at the town of Seattle, we assimilated quickly and Zara enrolled me for school.

It was rather hard to be the new kid in school, and sometimes I do get bullied, tormented and tricked, but soon I earned the respect of my classmates and even made some friends. Meanwhile, Zara got a part-time job in a local detective agency, solving petty crime and doing paperwork. She got a pay check that was enough for us to survive every month.

We went on like this for two years, with Zara starting to study part-time for college. She intends to attend Harvard Law School, and was studying very hard for the entrance exam. I started freshman year in high school, which was fun, except for the after-school activities.

I started working as a cashier in a fast-food restaurant to get us some extra income to support us, just in case Zara intends to save some money for her studies. After working for a few weeks, I then realized that many families come into the restaurant for lunches and dinners, more than teenagers did. I started feeling jealous of those families, and I wondered to myself, why Zara and I can't have a nice family just like the others. I began to worry about our parents, feeling as though we weren't filial children.

Then, my teacher at school assigned us a project- to do a research on ten families in the district. We were to find families in need of financial assistance or any other assistance, and we were supposed to help them, or find ways to help them.

While doing this research, I found out that some of my classmates had families that were worse off than us. Dad was an alcoholic, but when he was sober, he would check up on us, and made sure that we were safe. Mom may not be around much, but she leaves pocket money for us, or even makes lunches and dinners for us on some of her free days. Some parents barely bother about their kids, and the kids suffer as well, form physical and verbal abuse. Some kids fall into the wrong path, or follow in their parents' footsteps, and then got caught, and sent to juvenile jail.

After that project, Zara and I decided to go back home. As we changed our hand phone numbers, names, as well as looks, no one could identify us. When we called home, our father answered the phone. He was so overjoyed when he heard that we were coming home after two years of being "missing". He told us that he hunted high and low for us, with no leads at all. No one in school could do anything to help us, or find us, and he had not been at peace with himself for many days. We settled to meet at the airport, with many tears and kisses over the phone.

Dad was waiting for us at the airport for our arrival. We embraced, and he had tears streaming down his eyes. I buried my face in his chest and tears streamed down my eyes. He appeared to have changed. He no longer had bloodshot eyes, the smell of booze in his breath, tobacco stains in his teeth, and dirt encrusted on every inch of his body and clothes. He didn't have a smell emitting from his body for not bathing in weeks, and he no longer had a beer stomach. He wore fresh clothes, clean shoes, and he was clean shaven. His hair was cropped short, and he looked so different from the man I saw two years ago, a complete opposite of this man, a man whom I called Dad.

We went home, back to the place where we grew up, and we were greeted with silence. It was then that Dad revealed to us that mother had been serving jail time for being caught for drug trafficking. Dad finally sobered up there and then, and he vowed never to do what he did before. He took control of his life, and tidied up the house, replaced the spoilt and broken things, and then took up a job, which he was very happy at. His boss is very supportive of him, and helps him whenever he can.

That was 4 years ago. Mom is now out of jail, and I am studying in Harvard University under the medical faculty. Zara graduated, and was practicing law. She won a few lawsuits, and was progressing on well.

I recorded all this in my diary, which I carry around, and till this day, it has played a big part of my life, documenting everything that I've done for the past few years. This journey has changed my perspective of family, filial piety and my outlook about me. I will never forget those two very lonely years, and I hope that we can stay united as a proper family forever. (1258 words)


End file.
